Judgment Obtained Against Phony Internet Stock Adviser

Defendants provided paid subscribers with stock-trading recommendations, representing that the recommendations were produced by a staff of multiple professional traders, when in fact they were produced by defendant Luers alone (who was not a professional trader). Luers also falsely represented that the recommendations were highly successful and that he frequently made and profited from the recommended trades. For example, a fake “live trading room” was included on the website, purporting to allow subscribers to observe and mimic profitable trades in “real time” although in reality most of the trades were actually hypothetical.